Thursday 8 September 2011 11.19 EDT
First published on Thursday 8 September 2011 11.19 EDT

The first day of the 2011 school year at Simakakata community school in southern Zambia. Teachers say that a new school building has enthused pupils and parents: pass rates rose from 20% to 55% in the year since it was built, and absenteeism became almost negligible. From
nisuspiPhotograph: nisuspi/Flickr

Students at Good Hope Christian basic school near Kalomo in Zambia. The school was established 15 years ago, building up slowly and successfully from a ‘rudimentary’ or ‘community’ school (unfunded) to ‘basic’ school status (with government funding). It now takes children from the surrounding rural area all the way to their grade 9 exams, and has a science lab, a workshop and a home economics room among its facilities, as well as a preschool. It's impact on the community it serves has been immense, providing adult education classes and a hub for other development activity to organise around. One of the teachers, George Matantilo, was so inspired by its success that he left the school three years ago to try and emulate its achievements elsewhere. From
nisuspiPhotograph: nisuspi/Flickr

Edwin Kufekisa introduces his grade five class to some new words as part of social & development studies (citizenship classes) in a brand new classroom at Simakakata, southern Zambia. The community hand crafted thousands of bricks to build a new school. From
Care International and
Learn As One. From
nisuspi Photograph: nisuspi/Flickr

Vineet in Delhi shares a picture from a remote school in Nepal he visited. ‘The school is on top of a hill, and the small village had a severe shortage of water since it was at a high altitude. The shortage was so severe that people don't bathe for months to save water. I was happy to see a school with girl students, that provided me the satisfaction for their future’Photograph: Flickr

Shahzoda Isogova, 17, studies online using a solar powered computer at her school in Karategin, Tajikistan, where few schools have this luxury. Shahzoda regularly accesses the internet to improve her learning and wants to study abroad to become a translator. From
Christian AidPhotograph: Christian Aid Images/Flickr

Children study outdoors in La Paz del Tuma in Jinotega, Nicaragua, due to a lack of classrooms. Local coffee farmers with the support of Soppexcca, a partner of Christian Aid, have been working as a co-operative for four years to export at fairer prices and invest in community projects such as a proper school building and pharmacies. From
Christian AidPhotograph: Christian Aid/Tom Pilston

Helen teaches her daughter Lucy at their home in Mukongoro, Uganda. Lucy is epileptic but her mother can't afford to buy the drugs locally or the transport to collect the medication. She went to school when she was younger, but after having a seizure and recovering to find children laughing at her she became afraid to go and wanted to stay with her mother. Helen takes literacy classes run by a disabled people's organisation that ADD supports so that she can teach Lucy at home. From
ADD International Photograph: ADD International/Flickr